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Fashion statement

Chip Kelly’s new ‘uniform coordinator,’ Casey Martin, calls that play

What? The Ducks are wearing all white (with the green wings on the shoulder pads, of course) from head to toe Thursday on Boise State’s blue “Smurf Turf”?

Where’s the suspense? What’s happened to the mystique of the boldest fashion statement in college football history, a program that has a bigger closet than Madonna but never reveals what it’s wearing before game time?

That the University of Oregon football team would be dressed in white jerseys, pants and helmets in its season opener is information that should not have been leaked, University of Oregon golf coach Casey Martin said Tuesday.

The golf coach? What does he have to do with this?

Everything, it turns out.

You think sinking a putt on the PGA Tour is pressure? Try this: deciding from the myriad uniform possibilities for each and every UO football game this fall, trying to please both blue-chip recruits and rabid fans.

Does Martin feel the pressure? “I do,” he said Tuesday. “A tremendous amount of pressure.”

Martin, a Eugene native best known as the man who challenged the PGA Tour in court — and won — for the right to use a golf cart because he was born with a birth defect in his right leg, said he thought head football coach Chip Kelly was joking earlier this summer when he told Martin to choose the uniform combinations for the season. An admitted UO football “junkie,” Martin said he often sneaks down the hallway at the UO’s Casanova Center and into his good friend Kelly’s office to find out what’s going on with Duck football.

When he saw the big, black box of new uniforms there in June, “I did a cartwheel ... I think,” Martin said.

“You be the co­ordinator, you decide — that way I don’t have to worry about it,” Martin said Kelly told him.

“Are you serious?” Martin asked. Kelly said he was, but Martin still wasn’t sure.

But at a UO football-­sponsored golf tournament later in Medford, Martin said, Kelly was announcing his staff to a crowd of about 200, and said, “Oh, by the way, we’ve got a new position, uniform coordinator,” and announced Martin.

“I’ve given it a lot of thought, believe it or not,” Martin said.

He has made his choices for the entire season and given them to Kelly as a “rough draft,” he said.

UO athletic department spokesman Dave Williford said Martin is the “tongue-in-cheek” uniform coordinator. “Make no mistake about it, the head coach makes the final decision,” Williford said.

But Martin said he is the man, and has been given the leeway to make all choices using senior defensive back Walter Thurmond as his “confidante,” sending the player all of his selections by e-mail so he can check with his teammates.

The Ducks unveiled their fourth Nike-designed look in the past decade in June, this one including wings on the shoulder pads of all jerseys. The jerseys were first displayed in last season’s home finale against Arizona, along with a “steel gray” look.

Former UO head football coach Mike Bellotti, now athletic director, was known for never revealing what uniform combination the Ducks would wear on any given Saturday. Either he or the game captains made the choices on a week-to-week basis, Bellotti said. That wasn’t necessarily to psych out the opponent, “more just the idea of surprise or opening a new gift on Saturday mornings,” he said.

Asked what he would have chosen for Thursday’s game, Bellotti said: “White jerseys, I can tell you that. After that, it would be whatever made the (players) feel good so they could play well.” (As the visiting team on Thursday, the UO is required to wear white jerseys but can wear any color of helmet and pants.)

How many possible combinations do the Ducks now have? “I’m not smart enough to figure that out,” athletic department spokesman Williford said. Do the math, he said. The new look includes four helmets, five jerseys, four pants, two shoes (white and black), two colors of short socks and four colors of long socks, said Williford, who was adamant that the Ducks would be in all white on Thursday. “I’m telling you right now, that’s the only set we’ll have there,” he said. Asked if that was Martin’s selection, Williford wouldn’t say.

Martin said all white was the obvious choice for a blue field, but he refused to say if that is indeed is what he decided upon. Asked what the Ducks will wear in their home opener against Purdue on Sept. 12, Martin said: “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“You be the coordinator, you decide — that way I don’t have to worry about it.”